On Friday, Edison High School held its first powder puff football game as senior girls faced off against juniors to raise money for Care Packs for Heroes, a nonprofit organization that ships care packages to deployed troops.

The game was organized by Edison seniors Kelsey Wetzstein and Jordan Derego, whose mother, Su Derego, is cofounder of Care Packs for Heroes.

Wetzstein and Jordan Derego, both 17, are members of the Center for International Business and Communications Studies program at Edison, and the event represented their senior class project.

"I always wanted to play in a powder puff game, and a lot of local schools do it but we didn't," Wetzstein said. "So we began to ask people about it and they loved it. Then we took it on as our senior project.

"It took a lot of time. We started the first week of school. We advertised well and are glad people wanted to come out and support a good cause."

Each team consisted of 20 girls, 11-on-11, playing flag football.

The seniors defeated the juniors, 18-12.

"We had to depend on a lot of people," said Derego. "A bunch of teenage girls and boys that we love, but have big egos. It was really hard to get all of them to commit. Some are going to play sports at UCLA and Notre Dame, and they don't have time."

The event included a silent auction and a halftime show in which $1 would buy a water balloon and $5 bought a whipped cream pie, both of which were tossed at current Edison football players.

Among those being pied and ballooned were 2012 All-CIF defenders Trenton Aschoff and Derek Baljeu.

The event raised more than $2,000, all of which will go to Care Packs for Heroes, which acts as a kind of gift registry for soldiers.

Those wishing to ship a care package to troops overseas can visit carepacksforheroes.com, register their service member and select items from the online store to add to a care package. Su Derego and partner David Reuss then organize the packages and schedule deliveries to the soldier.

Reuss got the idea for the business when his daughter was deployed to Afghanistan in 2009.

"When my daughter was deployed, I solicited all my friends and family to do a care pack for her each week," Reuss said. "Within two hours, I had enough people signed up to take care of her entire seven-month deployment."

Jordan Derego said that above all else, organizing the football game taught her to be more generous.

"We learned to rely on people," Derego said. "Not everything was about me. I had to consider everyone else's time and schedule, so it helped me to be less selfish."

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